To this day, Felix ‘PewDiePie’ Kjellberg is one of the biggest YouTubers in the world; his channel has over 106 million subscribers, with his daily videos regularly receiving millions of views. But after taking a month-long break earlier this year, fans have concerns that he may quit the platform after a decade of work. These concerns were addressed by Kjellberg in a recent interview with Anthony Padilla of Smosh fame.
In the interview, PewDiePie discussed the potential for him quitting YouTube. The interview had an interesting dynamic between the two stalwarts of the platform, albeit with Padilla having left Smosh a few years ago. When asked by Padilla whether there is an “end goal” for his channel, Kjellberg responded with: “I just want to keep having fun with it and I think once I stop having fun with it will probably be the time, it’s time to go.”
However, fans can remain relieved that the Swedish YouTuber, who just signed an exclusive streaming deal with YouTube, will stay on in the long-term. “I have no idea when that is,” said Kjellberg, “Looking back on the year 2013, I remember being like: ‘Okay, maybe another two years or something.’ Being now, it just feels like alright, guess I’ll just keep going.”
In a video last month, PewDiePie admitted that he has seriously considered retiring, but credits his month-long break to reinvigorating his mental health and passion for content creation. However, he did confess in the interview that he could “totally live without [YouTube].” Considering how much income he has made over a decade of YouTube videos, which has gone into residences in Brighton, England and Japan, Kjellberg is almost certainly correct.
The past year have been eventful for Kjellberg, who married his long-time girlfriend Marzia Bisgonin, had his house in Japan burgled, and even had his videos banned in China. With a daily upload schedule, the mental strain of meeting fans’ expectations is considerable. PewDiePie did touch on his workload, stating: “I’ll probably scale down more and more as I go, but yeah, I still enjoy doing it.”
Kjellberg has already scaled down his online presence by scrubbing his Twitter account. The account has not been deleted as of this time of writing and remains up to “prevent fake accounts.” While PewDiePie continues to entertain his hundreds of millions of subscribers through daily uploads and streams and will do so for the foreseeable future, there may come a point in time where he walks away from his decade-long career in pursuit of other interests.
